Top 5 Mono-Black Cards In Bloomburrow!

 Hello there swamp creatures!

It's been a while since my last post, I know. Life's been coming at me a bit, and with a stagnating Standard format there wasn't really much call for Magic from me. But with both rotation and a new set on the horizon, it's high time we start brewin'! I'll have some brews up in the coming weeks now that all the cards have been spoiled, but in the meantime, I wanted to give you my Top 5 Cards for Mono-Black from Bloomburrow!

(Note: I didn't say "the top 5 black cards", I said "the top 5 cards for Mono-Black". While this will usually mean black cards in general, there may be a sneaky pick in there. Stay tuned!)

Honorable Mention: Rottenmouth Viper

I've seen a lot of hype for this card online, and rightly so--this is a bonkers good card. Cost reductions on strong creatures, especially with ETBs, should not be ignored lightly, and this is no exception. We already had a ETB focused deck in standard before (aka Pixies), set around either flickering or consuming permanents that had already gotten value from their ETB effects, and this slots right in.

The only reason this didn't actually make it into the top 5 is for a simple reason: Mono-Black Pixies Decks (or Braids Decks, as we don't have Pixies in Mono-Black) haven't been very good in standard for a while, not since Wilds of Eldraine, really, and that's basically the only home this card would have in Mono Black. This isn't some generic powerhouse you can slot into everything (a hint as to what's coming later on the list). It's powerful, yes, but it can only be powerful if the deck is built to take advantage of it. Will this be able to catapult Braids into playability? Only time will tell. But because it's only real home would be in a niche deck, this one gets an honorable mention only. Sorry, Asmodeus.

#5: Season of Loss

This may come as a shock to some who heard me raving about this card in Discord servers and online forums, as Season of Loss makes the cut only at number 5 on the list. To be clear, I am still VERY high on this card. I do still think it's the new form of Invoke Despair. It's good when you're behind on board, it's good when you're ahead on board, it's good as an equalizer. The only thing standing in its way, and the reason I have cooled a small bit on it, is that it focuses very heavily on creatures. Invoke Despair was able to hit a variety of permanents, OR draw if it didn't hit them. Season of Loss has more raw killing power, but it requires a creature-focused matchup to really shine. Now, I *do* think we are heading into a very creature-heavy meta, as some of the strongest cards rotating out of Standard were powerful non-creature spells, so I do still believe this card will be a powerhouse in Mono Black Midrange strategies. The surprise burn effect can even have some applications against control decks that will end up killing a bunch of your creatures over the course of the game. However, given the difficulty in maximizing this card when playing against some sort of control or combo strategy, Season of Loss gets bumped down to number 5.

#4: Darkstar Augur

What an absolute dream.

Solid statline. Flying damage. Dark Confidant effect (doesn't require putting it in danger like Preacher of the Schism or Bronco) for cards. AND you can double up for a single extra mana? This card is just a delight. 

There are, of course, some caveats. First, it does die to Cut Down, where Preacher and Gix do not. The caveat to THAT caveat, however, is that if you offspring it then you have a backup lil' goober to continue giving the card draw. Be careful slamming this on curve, but overall it has built-in "protection" against removal, which is nice.

Second, you can kill yourself with this. Rolling the dice off the top of the deck is, by definition, a roll of the dice, and if you don't build your deck with this in mind, you can murder yourself with a flipped Virtue of Persistence. That being said, that's variance, baby, and that's the name of the game (Magic: The Variable Gathering, right?). You will high roll, you will low roll, and you will most often average roll. Build your average roll to be acceptable, and you'll be fine. In addition, in midrange builds, you can slam this on three or four, get a card or two out of it, then sacrifice it to our #5 card Season of Loss to equalize the board and trade it for MORE cards. There are some play patterns and synergies that can soften the blow of the card's downside, making this a great card to slot into a variety of decks.

#3: Iridescent Vinelasher

I'm going to be honest, I didn't think this card was going to be this high. For a long time, I didn't even think this card was in contention for any of the spots, let alone number 3. But the more I played around this card, the more I slotted it into decks, the more I began to believe this might be the best black creature in the set, and here's why.

We don't really consider damage as a "value" measurement. Cards in hand, permanents on field, even cards in graveyard are typical measures of value, but it seems as though we as a playerbase tend to overlook damage as a form of value. Even Sheoldred, the poster child of "all I do is damage" is typically seen in most decks these days as a defensive option, and less as a grindy, inevitable clock.

But this card is different. If you play this on turn one, by the time you get to turn five (in a midrange deck, this is very easy to hit your land drops that much), it has done 4 damage on its own without attacking or putting itself in danger. This doesn't seem like much, it's true. If it attacked maybe once or twice before being walled out, maybe it did 5-6 damage. Again, okay, but about on par with a 2/2 for one like Forsaken Miner or something.

But the Offspring ability really changes this math, because suddenly all your lands are Shocks. If you are in a grind war, and you play this with the Offspring ability, *even if* your opponent stonewalls it with some big creature, suddenly *every* card in your deck is live. If you draw non-lands, great, that's gas to push you ahead. If you keep drawing lands, that's a real clock (heaven forbid you draw Fabled Passage, which gives you 4 damage for the low, low price of nothing). The fact that this is a landfall ability means, in a simplified game state, every card in your deck is suddenly live. If you and your opponent both draw lands with an empty board, you remain at parity. If this is on the field and you and your opponent keep drawing lands, you're winning the game.

This card goes in aggro, I'm convinced it goes in midrange, and it could even find a home in weird combo decks (which, admittedly, are practically guaranteed to NOT be Mono Black, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention them). What more can we ask of our one-drops?

#2: Fountainport

Now my note at the beginning makes sense!

It's not entirely fair to say that this is a fantastic card for Mono Black (even though it very, very much is), mostly because this is also a fantastic card for ANY mono-colored deck (and probably several other multicolored decks). Look, kids, free value is free value.

Mono-colored decks in particular have super flexible mana bases, given that no one really needs 20+ basics in a mono-colored deck. Because of that, the best mono-black mana bases I've dealt with lately include Sunken Citadel to power out Mishra's Factory or Mirrex activations. Activating this, though, is a dream come true. It's bodies. It's cards. It's mana acceleration (if you really, REALLY need it for some reason). This land does it all, for the low low cost of... slotting it in instead of the 19th-21st swamps. It doesn't matter what deck you're playing. Mono-Black aggro? Put one or two in. Mono-Black midrange? Put one or two or even three in. Mono-Black control? Full playset, baby! Again, it's not a TON of value very quickly, but when those games get grindy, I would much rather have this on the field than something like Mishra's Factory, or worse--a Swamp.

#1: Cruelclaw's Heist

A surprising pick, methinks. This card wasn't spoiled until very late, and it's a little hard to evaluate. We're giving our opponent cards? How could that be good?

Think about the play pattern like this: we're giving the opponent the drawn card BEFORE we look at their hand and take their best card. That means if our opponent drew into their best card... we get to take it. Not only that, *we now have their best card*. In terms of card advantage, we're at parity--we've let them draw a card, replacing the one we took, but we get to cast the card we took, which replaces the Heist we just played.

What it comes down to is we are essentially paying two mana to both replace our opponent's best card with a random one from their deck AND turn Heist into a copy of it. And we get perfect information of their hand.

THAT is disruption.

Seriously, I can't express how backbreaking this card can be against every kind of matchup. Against something like mono-red, we can steal one of their burn spells to turn around and kill a creature with it. Yes we're giving them a card off the top, but I'll take a possibly-not-a-burn-spell against a definitely-a-burn-spell any day. Against midrange, we get to take either their best threat or their best removal spell, depending on what we need. Against control, we can take their big finisher OR a big counterspell OR a big card draw spell. Against ramp... can you imagine playing your OWN Vaultborn Tyrant? Or Atraxa?

I'm practically drooling. Heist is going to make waves in this format. Not only are your opponent's cards not safe in their hand, they're now going to be actively working against your opponent. How Black is that??

I'm absolutely stoked for this upcoming format. I've got brews aplenty, featuring every single one of these cards, and I'm excited to share them. See you out there in the swamp!